1887] Biological Instruction in Universities. 513 
functions. Take care of the creative functions, and the vegeta- 
tive functions will take care of themselves. The precept is as 
pertinent to the life of a university as to that of an individual. 
The question then reduces itself to this, —How can a biological 
department be most efficiently and comprehensively organized for 
the fulfilment of its higher purposes? Every special question 
which the subject presents finds its solution in the same direc- 
tion. Take, for example, the preparation of students for teaching 
biology. It is plainly not a question of turning the biological - 
department into a sort of factory for the manufacture of teachers 
of the stamp which may just now have the highest market value. 
The question is not how to fit, but how to equip—not how 
young men can be fitted to teach natural history as it happens 
to be taught now, but how they can be most thoroughly pre- 
pared for improving and renovating existing methods and sys- 
tems. The best teachers have always been investigators ; hence 
the aim should be, on the part of one who proposes to follow 
teaching as a profession, to become an investigator, and, on the 
part of university instructors, to make as many investigators as - 
possible. This may be an ideal plan, which, in the majority of 
cases, cannot be fully carried out on either side; but this, to my 
mind, so far from being an objection, is its best recommendation. 
All that I claim is, that the most satisfactory results are to be ob- 
tained by working in this direction. A plan is not necessarily 
impractical because its fullest realization is impossible; and in 
the organization of any department of instruction in a university, 
the highest results are never attained where anything less than 
ideal aims are tolerated. 
_ A practical question of great importance here presents itself : 
What should be the attitude towards, and what the advice to, 
students who have a strong predilection for biological research, 
but who will be dependent for their support on the salaries which 
they may earn? I believe the policy of discouraging such a 
purpose has been carried to a dangerous extreme in this country. 
Those who know by personal experience what it costs to venture 
in this direction need no apology for the impatience which is 
aroused, when they see the real difficulties increased by the in- 
cubus of discouraging advice and an indifferent, unsympathetic, 
chilling attitude. Such advice may do little harm to one who 
has the self-reliance to “plant indomitably on his instincts, and 
